Commentary: The IDF has warned us about the next Lebanon War

Commentary

Ariela Ringel Hoffman, for YNet News, questions what private Israeli citizens could do if Hezbollah launches its intended 1500 rockets a day into Israel.

The obvious question is, after being given a description of city streets as battlefields, what should the public do with this important information? Should they understand that behind all these grim descriptions is a very clear and unambiguous statement, one that can be distilled into four words – every man for himself? Those who do not take care of their own protection will be without it?

Last November, a senior IDF officer warned of the implications of a Third Lebanon War. His name is Yair Golan, and he was at the time ending his stint as GOC Northern Command and transferring to Tel Aviv to serve as deputy chief of staff.

Everything was laid out in his warning – hundreds of rockets every day, severe damage to infrastructure, loss of civilian life, and, if anyone was in any doubt, the closure of Israel’s airports. especially Ben-Gurion Airport.

Thus, the rich and the poor, Sephardis and Ashkenazis, Arabs and Jews, those with European passport and those with only an Israeli one – everyone in fact – will be here to stay. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who listened carefully to the major general and others in Israel, was happy to chime in and fill in the blanks: Not only would Ben-Gurion Airport be closed, he vowed from his bunker, the entire country would be closed.

Now another general, Home Front Commander Eyal Eizenberg, is finishing his term. And if Golan’s comments from four months ago had been erased from the collective memory, Eisenberg was happy to remind us.

Not hundreds of rockets a day, he said in a final conversation with military correspondents, but 1,500 missiles a day. He added that the state of protection in Israel has deteriorated, and one out of every four citizens is unprotected.